6 Steps to Shorten Your Sales Cycle

What can you do to develop a strategy and action plan that will lead to closed sales within 3 to 5 meetings? Here are 6 critical components:

Step 1: Develop a concise and client focused value proposition. Why is this important? Your value proposition is designed to immediately capture the attention of the prospect—it communicates what value you have to offer, and it establishes a strong foundation for dialog. According to sales strategist Jill Konrath, “Weak value propositions are the root cause of most sales failures.”

Step 2: Establish credibility by being a thought leader in your specialized area of expertise. Provide articles, White Papers, and any other content with valuable information—doing so will help the buyer trust your expertise and positions you as an advisor and partner.

Step 3: Get in front of the decision maker. Be proactive and enter in at the highest level possible.

Step 4: Plan! Don’t wing it; you should always have goals in mind for every conversation. Ask yourself, “What do I want to accomplish during this conversation?”

Step 5: Address any objections early. It’s vital to be transparent with prospects and ask the uncomfortable questions to be sure that your goals and objectives are in line before moving forward. Buyers may cloak their objections and fears, but an article in the Tampa Bay Business Journal explains: “work on [objections] earlier during the sale and you’ll find your sales cycle shortened, your credibility enhanced and most importantly, more sales closures.”

Step 6: Establish clear next steps. It is vital to gain agreements and set goals with the buyer up front in order to establish mutual accountabilities.

Do you have any successful stories/strategies to help shorten your sales cycle? Let us know in the comments.